Ghost Tour

‘Will you cover for me?’ I’m helpless, delving into a set of well-worn expressions, shunning the stutter he beckons, projecting: Yeah, I reckon. ‘Listen,’ he says, ‘I owe you one.’ At this point, more like twenty, a reckoning that’s chasing propriety into an early grave. A new voice: ‘Step lively,’ says Greg, head a conspiracy tilt past the fire hatch and we scurry, him stubbing, me shrugging, Greg’s gaze a spinning speculation I nudge from him. ‘Madame’s on the march,’ he confides. I sigh. ‘No closer to the prize?’ My turn to roll my eyes, grab regulation headgear, unprop the door while trawling for witticisms. Zilch. There’s always next time. ‘Sure, love. Sure.’ We watch as the other darts ahead.    

Tiptoeing upstage,

we are mismatched murderers

longing for a break.

More Whimsy for Spectral, in the form of a haibun (or as haibunnish as English can get and not strictly speaking autobiographical either), written originally for NaPoWriMo 2019.

This is, essentially, a scene from my own house – the red hat that has accompanied me to many festivals, generally as a compere at various events at Edinburgh Fringe Festival, or at my own stage (Wild Strawberries) at Cambridge’s Strawberry Fair, and the hatstand... Hah.

I’ve always wanted a proper hatstand. I have... a lot of hats (literal as well as figurative), and there was never space or opportunity... until I went for a late-night walk while talking to friends on discord and almost literally stumbled across this fellow, abandoned on the pavement next to a large mirror spiderwebbed with a myriad of cracks. Bearing in mind that it was possibly cursed, I still felt that a midnight, frost-rimed gift of a piece of furniture I’d always craved, and such a handsome example, was not something to turn down.

Hard to say the figure I must have cut, and this is a solid chunk of wood and metal to hoick down the street over one’s shoulder, but there we have it – cursed or not, it’s currently draped in a red velvety throw and adorned with my hat, sitting quietly behind the door of my living room, and I hope it’s as happy to be here as I am to have it.